In Time, the Fall
by anotherFMAfan
Summary: "For his sake, and for hers, there was a journey she had to make, one last time." Warnings: Sensitive subject matter, discussion of miscarriage and character death. Written for the FMA Fandom Challenge 2016, inspired by art by Neri.


In Dublith it was sunny and fine.

The picture of a perfect first summer day, the high, white clouds drifting unhurriedly across the sky.

The window to the Curtis house was open and the curtains drawn back, offering a view of the garden at the back of the house, and occasionally allowing a soft breeze to come through. Izumi Curtis sat in the bed propped upright against a pillow on the headboard, watching the scene outside.

Sig was tending to the garden, massive form crouched down among the rows of plants, hands in the soil. She smiled softly to see the look of intense concentration on his handsome face, one usually reserved for his work, his craft. The butcher work which still carried stigma for many, but Sig did with dignity and pride, regardless.

The Heleniums required not much care to bloom, and certainly not all of Sig's formidable attention, but Izumi would be the last to dissuade him from the task. It was for her sake, she knew, and mostly only an outlet; something that he could do, could control, could improve.

Izumi leaned her head back against the pillow and let her eyes fall closed, breathing deeply, relaxing her body, carefully not allowing the sense of dread to well at the idea of sleep. For sleep brought dreams, and of late dreams brought her back to the memory of the one place she never again desired to go, but the one place she, and all other mortal beings, must return.

Since that day, the Gate and its eyes, reaching hands, its awful presence, was never far from her. In every time she closed the circle of her arms to transmute, every time she coughed sick red blood, it was there. It was there, all the more oppressive for its subtlety.

She knew it had been the same for Edward when he transmuted; she could see it in his eyes when they had spoken of it. It was but another burden borne—borne by all those who had ever stood before it and returned to the world of the living, for however short or long a time they were left.

Though the Gate had never been far, it was closer now. The final stage of its long, slow retribution would soon be at hand; but the last and cruelest cut was the knowledge of what would come after she had gone, that she would leave the one she loved the most alone and grieving. For death did not hurt those it claimed, only the living that it left behind.

Izumi opened her eyes, and watched her husband carefully smooth a section of dirt with the spade before pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of a hand, unwittingly leaving a line of brown earth across his forehead.

For his sake, and for hers, there was a journey she had to make, one last time.

* * *

Izumi pulled the small boat up the shore, just far enough to ensure it wouldn't be washed out, and stopped. Her chest heaved and her arms shook at with the task that, in years past, would have been a moment's pause, only. She focused on breathing, carefully, in and out, willing herself calm, willing the cough not to come. She couldn't collapse now.

Izumi had left Sig asleep in their bed, eyes wide and staring unseeingly at the ceiling. It was a sight she had seen so often over the years, and one she should have been able to look forward to seeing for many years to come. Keeping her eyes on his form, she had slowly, softly retreated from the bed, dressed, and departed for the island on her own.

It may have been that Sig would have delivered her to the island and left her to her contemplations in peace if she had asked; he always had respected this type of request. Even when she had insisted on going alone after the boy in South Headquarters, after the Fuhrer with Edward…but that was years ago now, and her condition was far worse. She did not know where the line would be drawn, when it finally was, between his desire to respect her wishes and his concern for her health, and she didn't wish to test him.

Her breathing was steadier now, and she straightened up. It was still very early morning, and the sun had not yet come up over the peak at the center of the island. She turned toward the first place she intended to visit and began to walk.

It was so long ago, now, and seemed a different life that she had brought Sig here for the first time. They had been young and newly united, completely wrapped up in life and each other. They had spent the summer here, and they were happy days. They had built a shelter—a house, of a sort—from what they could find, and lived off the land. Exploring, experimenting, learning.

Learning the most about each other.

At times they talked, sometimes for a whole afternoon, or in soft voices long into the night. She heard Sig's stories from before she had known him. About his life as a boy, his sister, the loss of their father. About his experiences, his thoughts about the world and the nation. About the slow, unchanging life of the country, life with the animals and the crops, each in their season. About his training, his work, how he had learned all that he knew. His hopes, his dreams, the goal of a butcher shop of his own, a little place in the world he wanted to share with her.

And she told him. Told him about herself. Her past, her loved ones, her beliefs. Her mistakes. Her years of trial and error. She spoke about life, mankind, the universe, the one and the all, the cycles that encompassed them all. About alchemy, for to understand the principles of alchemy was to understand a part of herself.

At other times, they spoke not at all, sometimes for nearly days at a time. There were things they needed not even words to be perfectly understood by their partner. Things they shared, things they both believed and lived. And there were places they were different: places they disagreed, places they argued. Sometimes they surprised each other, miscommunicated. Compromised.

As the summer waned, Izumi had grown surer in her heart every day. Their love was not perfect, nor would it be as storybook-clean as their dreams and plans, the routines of their everyday life as husband and housewife. But it was a real love, and she wanted to spend all her days, all the good and all the bad, with this man.

In the last week of summer, they both knew it was time. Being closely connected to nature, to the great cycles of life on this planet, was of the utmost importance. However, connection to mankind, living in harmony with their fellow human beings, doing their part for others, was equally important.

Izumi smiled softly as she reached the place their makeshift honeymoon suite had been, space now covered with jungle and almost unrecognizable. Before returning to Dublith, they had broken it down, returned the borrowed materials to the earth. It was the right thing to do, of course, but Izumi couldn't help but wish there to have been some trace, some sentimental memento remaining to mark the time they had spent there. She scoffed at the uncharacteristic thought, but perhaps today she could forgive herself of it.

She lingered another moment, lost in memories, before the dull throb of her insides pressed her to continue on. She returned to the path—if it could be called such after so many years unused—and followed it.

The period that followed had been a happy time, too. Settling in, finding suppliers and working hard on the shop. Meeting new neighbors and customers. Finding old friends in unexpected places. Building a place for themselves in their new surroundings and new life. Their bond deepening the more experiences and time they shared.

And then it had happened. The miracle.

Even when she was younger, and all of her energy focused on learning, and later her training on alchemy under Dante, all the while she had been aware of the awesome power of her body as a woman. For martial arts, for alchemy, for any and everything she desired to do as a human being. And for creating life.

Izumi stopped for a moment, leaning on one hand against a tree, to catch her breath. Her fingers detected a gouge in the smooth bark, and when she glanced over, found a series of cuts that could only be those Mason had described to her, cut with the knife she had given the boys. She smiled fondly.

Her body was hoping for more rest, but she dared not tally too long. She could never be sure when the cough would appear, and she had further yet to go. She straightened back up and resumed, allowing her thoughts to stray back to the past as she did.

It was the sweetest memories that held the sharpest bite, and as she brought them back to mind, her breast ached more deeply than with overexertion. She recalled the congratulations and the gifts. The tiny shoes and hand-sewn clothes that arrived. The way old women would smile at her, pat her on the arm, looking at her kindly, knowing the path that should have awaited her. The careful attention with which Sig helped prepare the nursery, the cradle, the baby carriage.

How the two of them had waited, how they had planned. At the time Izumi had spent so much time thinking, imagining how everything would be. Her happy fantasies she could remember in excruciating detail, the months and years she imagined the three of them would spend together, the imagined milestones and anniversaries. All that she and Sig would teach their little one about the world, all that they would share. She spent long hours over the months thinking, hands folded over her expanding abdomen, caught up in that world that existed only in her imagination…and now only in her memories, forever.

The overgrown path opened into a clearing, and Izumi sat heavily on a large felled tree before raising her attention to the bare space. Here, nothing had grown back, and perhaps that was what helped her recall so easily the cottage that had stood there, and how it came to be.

The doctor was an older man, with dark grey hair and a brisk manner. His expression was serious, and never fluctuated. He examined her thoroughly, silently, and had removed the stethoscope from his ears and looked at Izumi for a long second before picking up her chart.

"At the moment, there appears to be no sign of major trouble," he had announced, and Izumi could feel Sig breathe a sigh of relief behind her. "However, this is your first pregnancy, and there's a limit to what can be detected at this point," he continued, scribbling on the chart as he talked. "Get plenty of rest and fresh air, and avoid any excessive stress. Come back if anything changes," he said, and turned back to his desk, visit obviously over. What is must be like, she had marveled as she took Sig's offered hand to help her to her feet, to be responsible for so many little, precious lives. In a flash of deep insight that in retrospect seemed an omen, she had pitied him that burden.

It had been Sig's suggestion to build the cottage on the island, where she could get plenty of fresh air, rest, peace and quiet until the days approaching her due date. Izumi had agreed immediately. She was about to embark on the next step in the great cycle of all living beings. She could take time to reconnect with nature in the same place she and Sig had grown to love, to bring the baby into a world full of the wonder of life and the love of its parents. Originally they had intended to build it in the same place they had stayed together, but in the end had chosen the clearing because it had easier access to the shore, just in case. The cottage was simple but comfortable, and how happy Izumi had been in the weeks that followed.

And then the pain had come.

Izumi closed her eyes as her mind filled with the terror and the grief of that night. She had awoken to a cruel world, a reality already decided. She had awoken to have Sig take her hand and speak the awful words to her so very, very gently. She had awoken only to have everything, all the preparations and the anticipation and every happy moment collapse, leaving nothing in its wake but despair.

Izumi opened her eyes, at last, and gazed again at the empty space where the cottage had once stood. By the next time she had visited the island, it had been gone. The next time she had visited the island….

Izumi got to her feet, and looked toward the path toward the shore. Toward the last destination of this final journey. Curling her hands into fists at her sides, she set out.

She had only a vague recollection of the days after she had lost the baby, back in their house behind the shop. She had little concept of days at all; only hour on hour of black guilt, sick in her gut, and the suffocating loss.

Sig had tried so hard to support her. Even through the blackness, she had known that. But when she looked at his face, all she could see was the moment she had first told him about the baby, that they would be parents. All she could see was the happy excitement that used to shine in his deep brown eyes.

Now she had brought to ruin that wonderful, sweet future they had dreamed of together. She had created a life, only to cause its destruction in her weakness. She had failed her child, and her husband. She had been foolish and conceited to be so overconfident, to consider herself so strong, but she could not even protect the life of one little child she would have given anything to keep safe.

And even if it had only been a formality—for what else could he have done?—she had forced Sig to make the choice between baby and mother, to give the word for the doctor to let their child die. Her apologies were meaningless.

She had stared unseeingly out the window at Sig crouched in the grass, digging. He had told her he was planting flowers for her, that they would bloom in the fall and help bring some cheer to the garden: Heleniums.

But Izumi's thoughts had already been far away from the garden and Sig. Her mind had already been turned back on the island, and planning the atrocity she would commit.

Izumi knew she was close to the place it happened even before it came into sight. She could feel it; could feel the gateway that had silently called her here. She came out of the trees and approached the dark circle of rock with its pillars of stone. Goosebumps spread over her skin the closer she came. She remembered well how she had stolen out over the water, carrying her precious, grotesque cargo. Finding the cottage was gone, she had come back to this spot.

Every detail from the moment her hands had touched the circle on was seared, vivid, and irrevocable, into her memory. There was no detail shadowed by time. As the scenes played across her mind, it seemed her very heart had stopped beating.

Without warning, it hit. Izumi clapped a hand to her mouth as if to prevent it, but it was impossible. She coughed, muscles contracting, squeezing painfully, and thick red blood escaped past her hand to spatter down onto the silt. She coughed once more, twice, and fell to her knees. She gasped air into her lungs as best she could, feeling oddly removed, mind still on days long past.

If she had been whole, she couldn't say how long it might have taken her to go back to the house after the Gate had closed the second time. But she had no way of knowing exactly what it had taken, whether it were even possible for her to survive the night. Her body was chilled and shaking uncontrollably, covered in her own blood. She washed what she of the blood off at the shore—she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't be seen—and headed straight back to the shop. She didn't have the luxury of time to try to prepare herself to face Sig.

And how could she, even if she had the time? She had dared to call herself a mother, only to disfigure her child, turn him into an abomination, and then to abandon him. How could she possibly face Sig and tell him what she had done when she could not even bear to face herself? She focused only on getting back, getting to the house. But when she finally climbed the steps and reached the door, she halted.

What right could she possibly have? To turn the handle and enter as though she belonged here, when she had just betrayed the other who lived here, and everything that this home stood for?

Sharp pain had lanced through her, and she gasped, clutching her stomach. She knocked.

In those few seconds, she tried desperately to find the words she might say when he answered the door. But the moment the door swung open and she saw his face appear, she couldn't say a single word.

After the dash to the doctor, after the surgery that in the end would serve pointless, she lie in the bed, wracked with pain, dizzy with drugs. Of all the painful thoughts, of all the dark places her mind could have dwelt in those moments, the only image that would come to her was of dear Sig, planting those flowers.

He, too, had suffered such pain at the loss of their son. He, too, had felt helpless and hopeless and cried with her. Yet while her thoughts had festered in sickness, he had planted her those flowers. Though still brought low by grief, while still not healed, he had sewn them so they would bloom in the fall.

He had shown her, crouched there in the dirt, that he was still planning for the rest of their future together. Still hoping. Still devoted to her. That though they wept bitter tears now, the fall would come, and winter, too, and the great cycle of nature in which they both had such faith would go on, and they would, too.

She could see then so clearly, there in the hospital bed, his large form bent, patiently, planting one by one, but at the time the sight had been wasted on her. She had been blind. Again, it had been Izumi who lacked the strength, and now she had destroyed their hopes for that future Sig had never lost faith in…a future in which they had another child, a future in which they grew old together.

Izumi pulled herself back to the present, looked to the tree-line, and decided she had to at least try to get to its shelter. She pushed herself carefully to her feet and crossed the distance, crouching down and leaning her back against one of the large trunks. As she looked up the length of it toward its green branches, she remembered the tree she had found earlier, with its calendar cut in the wood.

Yes, this island held many other memories, too. Here she had left Edward and Alphonse, and smiled as she heard Mason's report every morning on their progress. Mushrooms and fish and snakes, and finally rabbit, and the fox bite. She laughed to herself, the sound ragged on the humid air. That fox bite had sure worried her, though she of course would never admit it to anyone.

And then for the second time she had left them here, this time alone—or so she had thought. She had so wanted to feel joy at seeing the boys again. Seeing how Edward had grown, how they had changed— but there was so much more to grieve at their reunion. The sin the boys had committed, the loss of Al's body, and Edward's enlistment. All of which she herself had enabled.

Izumi had felt ashamed of herself that when she looked Ed in the eye that day and he had confirmed what she suspected, admitted to her what he had done, some part of her had accepted it without question, had immediately understood. After all, they were always so very alike, in some ways…in all the wrong ways.

And yet, though the forms of their sins were the same, after that, their similarities ceased.

She remembered how she had knelt at that circle of rock, her hands around the throat of the homunculus she had created. But to kill him had been beyond her, and, she had realized in that moment, always would be. She could not now kill what her own folly had birthed. In that sense, perhaps student had truly outdone his master, in the end. Edward had been strong enough to do it, had taken the final, brutal responsibility for his mistake, and had restored what his brother had lost on his account.

But at what cost?

She had left Alphonse here a third time, those grey, expressive eyes wearing exactly the same expression of confusion, surprise, and disbelief as the boat pulled away from the shore. She trained him again. She had given him the tools he said he needed, but did he? Was he on the right path? Was Edward still alive, or had he preceded Izumi to death? Perhaps in repeating Alphonse' training she had merely repeated her mistakes.

Or perhaps it had always been an illusion that she could have changed anything by being a teacher to the Elrics, or by trying to be a mother to that unhuman boy. Perhaps no matter what she had said or done, Edward would have committed his sin. Perhaps no matter what she had said or done, the boy would have left her, despite finally being free to move, free of Dante. Free to live, if such as the existence she had forced upon him could be called a life.

Izumi was pulled out of her thoughts as she became aware of a sound—the sound of someone moving through the trees toward her. Even if it had not been for the familiar gait, she would have known exactly who it was. She smiled, felt gratitude and affection well up, bittersweet, in her chest.

The footsteps quickened, and Sig knelt down by her side.

"Izumi," he said, his low voice so familiar, such a comfort against the pain. How sad it was that his worried tone was just as familiar, surely brought by the sight of the blood. How many, many times they had played out this scene.

"I'm sorry…" Sig began, but she shook her head, turning to look him in the eye.

"No," she assured him. "I'm sorry, I know I worried you. But it was something I had to do."

Sig only nodded, then put his arms around her, holding her close. Izumi let herself relax, let herself calm, ceased thinking for a little and just listened to the steady sound of her husband's heart.

After a few moments, Sig gave her water to drink, helped her to wipe the blood away.

"Thank you, my dear."

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Izumi turned her head to look at the place, the stones warm in the afternoon sun, one more time.

There it had loomed: the Gate. And it waited for her still, just on the other side of the veil. She could feel the menacing presence that had haunted her dreams stronger than ever. Waiting.

Waiting… but not just yet would it have her.

Soon enough. Until then, there she would leave it, to wait.

Izumi looked back into Sig's eyes. "Yes," she replied simply. "It's enough."

Sig lifted her in his arms, as easily as he had so many years ago. She watched his profile as he carried her back, toward home. Izumi breathed deeply, put a hand to her lover's chest, and felt herself drift off into a peaceful sleep, so many weeks now in coming.

It was enough.

* * *

 _Dear Teacher,_ read the first line, and Izumi had to smile.

She was leaning back in a chair, laden with an absurd amount of pillows and blankets, all arranged lovingly for her by Sig. This deck, too, hand been his work, with the help of Mason, of course. It allowed Izumi to spend more time out in the sunlight and the breeze in this special chair of hers, which for all intents and purposes was a bed. The deck and the chair, the mountain of pillows… all of it was only a portion of the absolute pampering of her that had grown more acute of late as her mobility decreased, but Izumi accepted it with as much grace as she could. The deck looked out on the garden and the yard, where at the moment Mason was playing ball with some of the younger neighborhood rascals. Sig sat quietly beside Izumi as she read.

When she finished the letter, she laid the paper back down on her blanket-covered lap.

Sig picked up the paper in turn, returning it carefully to its envelope without intruding on its privacy, looking to Izumi instead. She smiled, and answered the question he had not even to ask.

"He's doing well enough," she said. "It seems he's not yet to make much progress on his search, but that's to be expected. It will take time."

And time he had, now. He was so young, more so now than before, even; and this time there were no monsters snapping at them from behind, no looming threat of war. Alphonse had time to learn, and to think, and to make his choice. In the end, would it be different from his brother's? Different from hers? There would be no way to know until the day came.

She thought of Alphonse, those clear, Elric eyes always so full of everything that was in his heart. He did not have make their mistakes. He did not have to drive himself to ruin for want of what he had lost if he chose not to do so. She thought of Winry, and the wisdom she had seen in her eyes the last time they had spoken—the acceptance, the quiet strength.

Human beings were truly mysterious things. Their hearts could be so fragile, and yet irrepressibly resilient. They un-learned things they should have known, even the most painful lessons. Human beings healed, forgave, forgot, even against impossible odds; even against the deepest of grief. They were happy— found small, precious joys, found love, found hope, even when ethics or morals, society or truth, or other such heavy words would not have them to do so.

For Izumi, thoughts of her son would always bring with them sadness, regret, and guilt. But in these last few weeks, she often recalled the few peaceful hours she had spent with the homunculus child before he knew what he was, and the few times he had come to the house since, before wandering off again elsewhere. And despite it all, when Izumi thought on those moments, she felt more happiness than pain.

"I wonder," she said softly, half to her husband and half to herself. "What do you suppose our boy is doing right now?"

Sig looked at her, the area around his eyes tightening in concern. Sig put his large hand over hers where it lay, gently wrapped it in his.

She smiled, squeezing his hand a little in return. After a moment he smiled back, still slightly cautious.

Mason groaned loudly in exaggerated defeat as he was tackled to the ground, a series of high-pitched cheers of victory following soon thereafter. Mason had gotten better at these theatrics the longer he had been at it, Izumi noted in amusement. Eventually there would be generations of Dublith children he'd lost to.

Izumi looked back down to the envelope on her lap.

Would Alphonse Elric repeat the mistakes of his brother, his father, his teacher?

"Only time will tell," she mused quietly.

Time, the most valuable thing in the mortal world, and the most easily taken for granted.

How much of it now was left for her? Not a year; a season, perhaps.

Izumi looked over the hills to the great expanse of sky beyond, the clouds on the far horizon that hailed the rain the farmers outside of town had been waiting for so long. A breeze swept over the grass and off to other lands, off to every corner of the earth.

Yes, she felt sure, a season—and when summer left, it all would end.

The day when the Heleniums bloomed, the day when—if—her twice-pupil found his long-lost brother, the day when her son grew to be a fine, tall young man. She would live to see none of them; but no such thoughts burdened her.

There was only the soft breeze from the west, and the sunlight; the warmth of Sig's hand in hers. Izumi closed her eyes, to the sound of the birds and laughter of children.


End file.
